Top Stories from NCPR

The short-term deal to save Alcoa’s operations in Massena is nearing its halfway point. At the end of 2015, New York State gave the aluminum giant $73 million to stay in town. That move saved more than 600 jobs. But it raised eyebrows among people who saw it as a giveaway of taxpayer money.The contract with Alcoa expires in two years now. [full story]

Massena has been through a lot of ups and downs over the years. Alcoa is committed to keeping its aluminum smelters open, but only for so long. Other factories that used to provide steady jobs and good wages shut down years ago. Tom Gramuglia used to own a few of those factories. He’s an entrepreneur who's opened a string of businesses in Massena over the last 45 years. Some worked, some didn’t - but what may be his biggest success is hidden in plain sight. [full story]

Last week our reporter Zach Hirsch set up a storytelling booth at SUNY Plattsburgh. The booth, inspired by the national StoryCorps project, was called the Brave Space. It was part of the school’s diversity week. People went in pairs to talk about their identities, struggles, and their history. One of the conversations we recorded was with Tyrrell Muhammad. After participating in a robbery in the '70s, Muhammad spent nearly 30 years in prison at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora.Muhammad sat down with Clarence Jefferson Hall, a history professor whose father was a corrections officer at the same state prison. [full story]

State corrections officers working in prisons across New York have rejected a tentative contract agreement hashed out between their union and state officials. Thousands of those guards work at correctional facilities here in the North Country. [full story]

New York’s health care system is bracing for big changes to the Affordable Care Act. No one knows for certain how it will be altered, but it will almost certainly cost the state a significant amount of money. [full story]

In this Chippewa fable, the groundhog's children discover that spring has come.Story Traveler is unscripted storytelling from everywhere in the world, stories for the heart to hear and the mind to imagine. [full story]

Additional rain and unseasonably warm temperatures this week further damaged the snowpack, especially at lower elevations in the central Adirondacks, and at the periphery of the Adirondack Park. Winter conditions remain however, and tomorrow we’ll see below zero windchills and some of the coldest weather we’ve seen this winter. Summit windchills today will mostly be in the -30s; tomorrow near -40; and Sunday in the single digits. [full story]

Why would a heavy fur cape, like a lion's mane, be appropriate on a tropical savanna?As with male fashion in humans, it appears the that the lionesses of the Serengeti like it the thicker and darker, the better. Martha Foley and Dr. Curt Stager talk hair. [full story]

Author R.M. "Rick" Doyon began his writing career as a political journalist on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. That's where he says he honed his listening and "powers of observation" skills. [full story]

In a potentially explosive development, an Indian snowshoe racer visiting Saranac Lake for an international competition was arrested on Wednesday and charged with first degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.The arrest of Tanveer Hussain, age 24, was reported by the Adirondack Daily Enterprise Wednesday evening. [full story]